MP 7,1 Waiting for Mac Pro 7,1 A1991 (no more)

[rjtiedeman]

There is also an insurance catch. If you are a freelancer and work out of your home I don't think your homeowners insurance will cover a 7-25 K computer system with out a rider. In other words if you get robbed, flooded, burned down or whatever you just lost your profit for several years. I am pushing the limit with my iMac Pro and a backup cMac Pro. It pays to wait until we have a project I that will cover the cost of this kind of power. A machine this expensive will need to be running 24-7. Also only one designer can use it at a time. So the billable hours per week would not be enough to cover its cost. This is a job specific workstation. Should be interesting to see what companies find to do with the 7,1 MP.

 

[Peace]

There is also an insurance catch. If you are a freelancer and work out of your home I don't think your homeowners insurance will cover a 7-25 K computer system with out a rider. In other words if you get robbed, flooded, burned down or whatever you just lost your profit for several years. I am pushing the limit with my iMac Pro and a backup cMac Pro. It pays to wait until we have a project I that will cover the cost of this kind of power. A machine this expensive will need to be running 24-7. Also only one designer can use it at a time. So the billable hours per week would not be enough to cover its cost. This is a job specific workstation. Should be interesting to see what companies find to do with the 7,1 MP.

Why wouldn't insurance cover the system ? Because the insurance company thinks it's too expensive ?

What if they think you're car is too expensive ? Or your TV ?

 

[Pressure]

And Eypc has 128 lanes.

Yet another reason they should have gone all in with AMD.

Yeah, you don't have to tell me that. It was merely some sort of consolation to the fact that we got Xeon and not Epyc.

 

[barmann]

They may redesign the back side of the iMacPro like the new cheesegrater style of the 7,1 MacPro and the new display and solve the throttling and overheating problems. This would work for the iMac too.

You can cheat physics, but you can't beat physics .
In a thin casing containing little air volume, air flow compromised by design constraints, vans running low for noise reduction, and a monitor panel right in front of it, overheating is a fact of life .

To avoid throttling, and maintain the form factor, you'd have to use something like external liquid cooling .

 

[filmak]

You can cheat physics, but you can't beat physics .
In a thin casing containing little air volume, air flow compromised by design constraints, vans running low for noise reduction, and a monitor panel right in front of it, overheating is a fact of life .

To avoid throttling, and maintain the form factor, you'd have to use something like external liquid cooling .

Of course they cannot maintain the current iMac form factor. If they go this route they have to make it a little thicker at the edges as the new display is, about 2,7 cm or more. (is this about the same as the old iMac 2011 was?)
Thinness and thermal dissipation are not good mates, this a widespread problem in macbooks and iMacs, in general.

 

[wallysb01]

Why wouldn't insurance cover the system ? Because the insurance company thinks it's too expensive ?

What if they think you're car is too expensive ? Or your TV ?

Insurance companies and plans within them can have very different limitations on the value of the contents of your home. If you have a high value jewelry, musical instruments, computers, TVs, sound systems, etc., you may not have enough coverage. I don't think this is a huge issue as adding a rider to specifically protect certain items is usually very cheap (most people do this for wedding rings, for example), but if you make a habit of buying $5-10K versions of stuff, you might look into your policy and be willing to pay a few extra bucks a month.

 

[barmann]

Imho apple needs to reinstall the trashcan, but not as a Mac pro, but as bare Mac, with non hedt i7/i9 a and a single Vega 48/64 GPU, the trashcan still has it's merits.

The tcMP is a brilliant design in my opinion, it just happened to be really bad at being a Mac Pro .
As a Mini+ it'd be fantastic, with lower spec CPU/GPU as you suggested, standard RAM and storage sticks, a bunch of TB3 and USB A ports - and at half the price .

There is way toooo much overlap between the 'trashcan' and the iMac Pro.

I still don't understand how the iMac Pro has become a reference for anything .
Outside of the Mac product naming strategy group that is - two interns chained to a wall in the basement .

It's an iMac , a pimped out version of it, but the letters p,r,o mean as much as crunchy or deputy vice president of catering .
It might be an improved design in some respects, but it still uses the same formula - a laptop glued straight to the back of a monitor .
It may do a mean Geekbench, but if you need the power it promises on paper for more than a few minutes it just won't deliver .

It's only anecdotal, but the people I know in photography and graphic design tend to choose between an iMac - regular or deputy vice president range doesn't matter - and an MBP + display , if they want to save some money or like the simplicity of the setup .

MBP usually wins, as they will need a laptop anyways .
Need siginificantly more power than an that ? And monitors that can be calibrated properly ?
Well , an iMac doesn't provide either .

 

[Blair Paulsen]

What would be the significant downsides of treating a laptop like a headless Mac? TDP is an issue, but iMacs and Minis have truncated thermal envelopes anyway. Couldn't you just park an MBP on a laptop cooler, an under $100 item? Run HDMI to whatever display suits your needs/budget, add keyboard and mouse, bingo.

This approach is no panacea, but for $2,500-ish you could have a nice laptop for the many situations it's great for, and, still use it as the brain of a desktop setup.

Yes, for that same $2,500 you could build a Windows box with much better specs, but it wouldn't be very portable and you'd be in Windows.

Ideally, Apple would offer a pimped config of the Mini in the $1,200 to $2,200 range to fill the "hole" - but it's a tough business case to make if it requires developing a fresh Mini design to handle more TDP. The idea that Apple wants to reduce the number of Mac SKUs seems both logical and inevitable. They're probably also looking at longer replacement cycles across their user base in general, which is likely to keep prices up.

If a $2-3K headless Mac is really what you need - I'd cross my fingers and hope Apple wants to redesign the Mini case anyway to fit the "new look" established by the mMP 7,1 - and - make it capable of cooling larger loads while they're at it...

 

[deconstruct60]

They may redesign the back side of the iMacPro like the new cheesegrater style of the 7,1 MacPro and the new display and solve the throttling and overheating problems. This would work for the iMac too.

Simply adding holes isn't going to significantly going to change the cubic feet per minute (CFM) moving through the case. The XDR display has some fans in it ( not major, loud blowers but are moving the air. ) . Those holes simply just don't do it by themselves.

If they went to a 6K display panel ( perhaps just "regular" HDR backlight that didn't need cooling) then would have more room ( bigger fans and wider spacing) . Not for those 32xx and their TDP target range but if some speed bumped W-22xx show up later (ot W-23xx if wait into later 2020 ) Apple could 'bump' the clocks slightly on the iMac Pro ( and no core count increase. )

Although, if they were will to drill round holes all over the back side of the iMac Pro, there would be about zero excuse why they couldn't put a RAM door on the back too.
[doublepost=1559772378][/doublepost]

....

One thing that I think is clear from the Mac Pro is that they felt the burn from the “thermal corner” and seem to have planned for the potential of hotter chips in the future so as not to hose their update work. It’d make a certain amount of sense for Apple to apply the same thoughts to their iMP lineup—build something that can handle these chips and something a little hotter so Intel’s issues or a hot AMD architecture don’t force excessive compromises.

If push the iMac Pro into matching the same CPU TDP as the new Mac Pro target of hottest of the hot, how does it not morph into an overlap of the Mac Pro?

The iMac Pro on a path to chase Intel's fab failures is probably not a path they are going to put it on.

 

[zephonic]

If the 27" iMac still supports target display, it would be cheaper to buy one of those and use it as a monitor for your Mac Pro. How crazy is that?

 

[fuchsdh]

If the 27" iMac still supports target display, it would be cheaper to buy one of those and use it as a monitor for your Mac Pro. How crazy is that?

I don’t think they have since the retina 5K. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204592

Although, if they were will to drill round holes all over the back side of the iMac Pro, there would be about zero excuse why they couldn't put a RAM door on the back too.
[doublepost=1559772378][/doublepost]

If push the iMac Pro into matching the same CPU TDP as the new Mac Pro target of hottest of the hot, how does it not morph into an overlap of the Mac Pro?

The iMac Pro on a path to chase Intel's fab failures is probably not a path they are going to put it on.

The same way the iMac Pro is different than the Mac Pro now. It’s got a screen, it has a lower price, and it’s designed for external expansion rather than massive internal expansion.

There’s plenty of Apple creatives on podcasts who are sticking with their iMac pros. It fits a niche.

 

[jscipione]

I was expecting this Mac Pro but with 1 PCIe slot in a mini-itx sized case that costs closer to $3k-$4k. My mistake was that I did not expect that Apple would ship a full tower. The base price is beyond what I could have imagined yet so are 8 PCIe slots and a 1.4kW power supply.

I said that we would be getting a worthy successor to the cheesegrater Mac Pro and that's exactly what we got. When Apple said they were making a modular Mac Pro the most straightforward way to get there was a tower. think horses not zebras. That is exactly what Apple delivered. This Mac Pro 7,1 is 2x the cheesegrater that the 5,1 is!

If you could go back in time to 2010 wouldn't you buy the 5,1 knowing what you know now? This Mac Pro will be the last and fastest Intel Mac Pro that will ever be. $6k is quite a sticker shock and I'll want to upgrade a few things so the price will be even higher than $6k. However this price represents the minimum Mac that is acceptable to me and so I must buy it. Change your avatar AidenShaw because the Mac Pro is back from the dead!

 

[Peace]

Come on people I was saying for a long time a new cheese grater Mac Pro was coming.

 

[ssgbryan]

Wouldn't the new iMac Pro (ok, not the one which is currently out) fill in that spot? It offers a display + workstation hardware. Sure, you can't upgrade it, but it does fill the spot...

It throttles. The AIOs can’t do sustained loads, so no it doesn’t fill the slot.
[doublepost=1559793539][/doublepost]

What would be the significant downsides of treating a laptop like a headless Mac? TDP is an issue, but iMacs and Minis have truncated thermal envelopes anyway. Couldn't you just park an MBP on a laptop cooler, an under $100 item? Run HDMI to whatever display suits your needs/budget, add keyboard and mouse, bingo.

This approach is no panacea, but for $2,500-ish you could have a nice laptop for the many situations it's great for, and, still use it as the brain of a desktop setup.

Yes, for that same $2,500 you could build a Windows box with much better specs, but it wouldn't be very portable and you'd be in Windows.

Ideally, Apple would offer a pimped config of the Mini in the $1,200 to $2,200 range to fill the "hole" - but it's a tough business case to make if it requires developing a fresh Mini design to handle more TDP. The idea that Apple wants to reduce the number of Mac SKUs seems both logical and inevitable. They're probably also looking at longer replacement cycles across their user base in general, which is likely to keep prices up.

If a $2-3K headless Mac is really what you need - I'd cross my fingers and hope Apple wants to redesign the Mini case anyway to fit the "new look" established by the mMP 7,1 - and - make it capable of cooling larger loads while they're at it...

A MBP can’t do sustained loads....

Ask me how I know....

 

[Pressure]

It throttles. The AIOs can’t do sustained loads, so no it doesn’t fill the slot.
[doublepost=1559793539][/doublepost]

A MBP can’t do sustained loads....

Ask me how I know....

Funny thing, TurboBoost were never intended for sustained loads.

 

[ct2k7]

Funny thing, TurboBoost were never intended for sustained loads.

And thus, it isn't a suitable replacement.

 

[Pressure]

And thus, it isn't a suitable replacement.

Does it throttle to less than the base clock?

 

[ct2k7]

Does it throttle to less than the advertised speed?

Assuming shutting down also meets that requirement (i.e clock speed of 0), then yes. In other cases where it didn't shut down, it clocked down to below advertised speed.

 

[danwells]

A new "holes-in the back" iMac Pro might still lack a RAM door - for three reasons (one of them actually legitimate, one quasi-legit, and one fully profit-oriented).

The legitimate reason is that the RAM slots might be on the back (screen side) of the motherboard. Both the current iMac Pro (probably for reasons of space) and the new Mac Pro (perhaps cooling) have them there. The Mac Pro has both sides of the board accessible, but it's hard to imagine an iMac design that allows access to the back of the motherboard without removing either the board or the screen, either of which falls in the class of "scary upgrade".

The quasi-legit reason is that we are looking at at least four, and very likely six full-sized DIMM slots. That's a BIG door. The only time I can recall Apple offering a door to full-sized DIMM slots was on some thicker iMacs where the door was on the bottom - back doors have always been for SODIMMs only.

The profit reason is, of course, the Apple Tax - bury the RAM slots and most people will buy RAM from Apple.

 

[fuchsdh]

A new "holes-in the back" iMac Pro might still lack a RAM door - for three reasons (one of them actually legitimate, one quasi-legit, and one fully profit-oriented).

The legitimate reason is that the RAM slots might be on the back (screen side) of the motherboard. Both the current iMac Pro (probably for reasons of space) and the new Mac Pro (perhaps cooling) have them there. The Mac Pro has both sides of the board accessible, but it's hard to imagine an iMac design that allows access to the back of the motherboard without removing either the board or the screen, either of which falls in the class of "scary upgrade".

The quasi-legit reason is that we are looking at at least four, and very likely six full-sized DIMM slots. That's a BIG door. The only time I can recall Apple offering a door to full-sized DIMM slots was on some thicker iMacs where the door was on the bottom - back doors have always been for SODIMMs only.

The profit reason is, of course, the Apple Tax - bury the RAM slots and most people will buy RAM from Apple.

If it's a chassis redesign, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Apple sticks to the current "take it to an ASP" line but that, like with the mac mini, the actual process for reaching the RAM and other components is made easier. Any method that just requires screws, even if you'd have to pull apart the back side to reach it instead of breaking out the tape would save a lot of time and make it much easier for reasonably seasoned people to open it up.

This does seem a bit far-fetched, but I think Apple has pivoted with its offerings substantially that I can see it happening. After all they brought back upgradable RAM In the Mac Mini after they famously turned the "easy open" design into a Torx-screw-locked design in 2014.

 

[deconstruct60]

....
This does seem a bit far-fetched, but I think Apple has pivoted with its offerings substantially that I can see it happening. After all they brought back upgradable RAM In the Mac Mini after they famously turned the "easy open" design into a Torx-screw-locked design in 2014.

that was pretty much brought on for two reasons.

i. Moving the mini to tracking the iMac's modern use of using desktop processors ( the iMacs are not "laptops glued to the back of screens. Haven't been for years. That is notion is about as old as a 2009 Mac Pro. )

ii. The bigger fan and move to T2 meant can't 'waste' horizon space on soldering down the RAM. That swepped solder RAM for NAND more efficiently used volume by going back to so-DIMMs.

Screws are still there in current Mini. You have to basically disassemble it to get to the RAM. Lack of glue is about the only thing "easier" about this (and easier to crack screen than bending the Mini case. ).

The change I see is a bit broader. They aren't trying to make all the desktop track all the evolution paths that they have the laptops on. I very skeptical though of there being a 180 turn though back to putting plainly visible screws back into the iMac and away from the smooth surface. Externally the basic mini case didn't change much at all.

If Apple can find a way to dump SATA drives from the iMac they'll throw most of that at cooling and not a "pit crew' component internal changes enablement.

 

[barmann]

( the iMacs are not "laptops glued to the back of screens. Haven't been for years. That is notion is about as old as a 2009 Mac Pro. )

Care to elaborate ?

Between a laptop glued to a display ( 0/10 ) , and a proper tower with sufficient cooling for sustained heavy-ish workloads plus flexibility re. upgrades ( 10/10 ), how would you rate the iMac Pro ?

I know full well iMacs are no longer literally laptop components stuck on a display, as they were for a while .
I'd give them a 4/10 , considering they are now marketed as professional workstations .

 

[danwells]

It would be tricky, although maybe not impossible, to provide access to the back (screen) side of the motherboard in any all-in-one where the motherboard is behind the screen.

Option 1 is to go in through the screen, as Apple has always done. That involves removing the screen in some fashion. Apple has always used tape, while a company intent on making upgrades easier instead of harder could hinge the screen somehow - but it will always invole handling the screen out of its housing.

Option 2 would be to make the motherboard removable - say One Big Edge Connector connecting it to display, power and I/O. That means no handling the screen, but it now means you have to handle the motherboard out of the case.

Option 3 would be to hinge the motherboard - certainly the easiest to upgrade, but a substantial amount of extra design and production, for something that doesn't happen all that often. Easier to put the RAM on the accessible side, but Apple seems to use both sides on most recent designs - the current iMac Pro's RAM placement seems to be dictated by cooling...

 

[Martyimac]

It would be tricky, although maybe not impossible, to provide access to the back (screen) side of the motherboard in any all-in-one where the motherboard is behind the screen.

Apple has always used tape, while a company intent on making upgrades easier instead of harder could hinge the screen somehow - but it will always invole handling the screen out of its housing.

Just an FYI,  didn't always use tape on the iMac. My 2008 iMac uses magnets to hold the screen in, no tape anywhere to be found.

 

[flat five]

Flat Five.

HEY!!!



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(fwiw, i don't do this forum anymore.. waiting for nMP V2 or this new thing got too tiresome + i needed to actually get some work done... (+ MVC got banned so i didn't have anyone as fun to battle with )...

i'm now on an iMac/MBP instead of Mac Pro.. the newer iMacs (not pro) are pretty freaking sweet for CAD/CAM these days.. rendering is all, or mostly, cloud based for me the past couple of years too.. i doubt i'll ever need something more than what these 'prosumer' things are capable of these days)